Have you ever had one of these moments?

30052009

…One of the moments where you enter into a boss fight (or whatever, really) with something to prove, someone to shut up, or something to rectify? It happens intermittently – not too often, just intermittently – with me. Usually, it happens when I PuG with Noobz. I could probably have BIS Ulduar 25 gear in every slot with her, though, and still get that sort of pushback because of the name. A few days back, I got into one of these situations with Manch – and those don’t happen too often.

It was in a VoA-10 run, pure PuG. We decided to do Emalon first, and cleared to him more or less alright. Warrior and Death Knight tanks, myself as a Shaman healer, plus a Druid and a Priest. Priest was the Raid Lead.

So, we’re getting setup for the Emalon attempt, and it’s the usual – “does everyone know the fight”,” I need AI”, etc. The Priest decides that he’s going to heal the DK (who is tanking adds), and I’ll have the Warrior. Druid heals the raid.

Now, given the mechanics of this fight, it’s pretty important that I get my Totems all down. Nature Resistance is an absolute must. Stoneskin and Mana Spring aren’t far behind, and Flametongue – well, it helps. Anyhow, we readycheck it, get ready for the initial pull / run-in and away it goes. DK gets initial aggro, runs left. Warrior gets Emalon, runs right. I run down to the base of the stairs, drop Nature Resist – and by now, the Warrior is in serious trouble. For some reason, his health is just getting crushed. I used my NS macro (it’s bound to Chain Heal, but that’s still an absolute minimum of 10,000 on the heal) and Riptided. Before I could get off a Healing Wave – or set up a second totem, even – the Warrior got folded like a tent.

All of this looks really bad if you happen to be me; it’s a classic case of “bad stuff happened, blame the healer.” Predictably, the Priest starts to question me in raid chat. “Can you heal the tank? Are you sure?” I don’t know if he even bothered to look at gear before, but mine was better than anyone in the raid had. That, and this guy who is calling me out has the word “Shadow” in his name, and he’s telling ME how to heal? Ok, whatever. I’ll be a sport about it and not complain, just layout my Fish Feast and assume the position. He’s bagging on the Druid too, though – “Atter, did you know that you’re in PvP gear?”. Well, said Druid – Atterburg – happens to be in my guild. I know that he’s a hell of a good PvP player, but never raids much because he has a family commitment in the evenings. He’s more than ok to do the healing job, and it’s not like it’s lvl 78 crafted PvP gear. He’s in epics.

Anyhow, go-round #2. No problem with healing tanks now – I *did* inform our RL that Shammies can’t heal on the run, so we at least HoTted the Warrior for the pull – but the issue comes down to DPS. Low enough, in fact, that they can’t get the second Overcharge. Well, at least I know it’s not me. That Death Knight over there in unenchanted blues and greens, who is wielding a Runeblade of Demonstrable Power? Yeah, he might want to gear up. strangely, he’s not mentioned in raid chat. Attempt #3 is more or less a mirror of #2, just on a longer timeframe. Bottom line: DPS fails, Overcharge asplodes, we die. Lucky for us, a certain DK disconnected after this. I guess he was hoping for better boosters. 😦

While they’re looking for replacement DPS, I volunteered that I could swap over to Ele. Once again, I’m certain that the Raid Lead didn’t think I’d have the output – though in his defense, it is easier to get anothr DPS. Anyhow, we finally did land one – a Ret Pally (with gear, yay!) and proceeded to wreck some face. One shot, downed boss once the DPS switchout was made.

My vindication (part 1)? That Paladin put up DPS / Healing meters after the fight. Top healer, by about 3%? Me. Second? Druid. Third? Priest. I wasn’t just healing my tank, either. I bailed his out a few times and got the Jesus Beam off into the raid on several occasions – including once on the Rogue when he was reduced to less than 5% health. So take that, Shadow Healy Guy. On to Archevon.

We all know that Archevon is a total joke anyhow – no way he’s going to justify three healers. I made a command decision at this point and told the raid “I’m going to my Ele spec for this fight.” Time to prove some more points.

While it would be my hope that he inspected my gear after I changed out sets, or at least noticed that I’d pulled an iLevel 226 item like Voice of Reasonout of my bags for an offset, I doubt that Mr Shadow Guy was very aware of the cards I was holding. Long story short, though, we blew Archevon away (surprise, surprise.) That Paladin put up the meters again afterwards – #1 DPS, at about 3450 and more than 200 in front of the Ret Pally at #2 – me again (and Atterberg topped him on the Healing Meter again).

I didn’t say anything to him afterwards, just “thanks for the run” and left the group… but I know damn good and well that he was aware of his mistake in judgement. And you know what? As smug, cocky and selfsure as it might have been for me to feel that way, I felt pretty damn good about it.

I feel under so much pressure some times that I’m not allowed to make a mistake as a healer and that your gear has to be absolutely top to make raids, when in truth a good healer is one who has common sense and a little bit of intelligence. Obviously somehting you can only prove after the raid. Well done for proving them wrong, inspiration to all healers 🙂